


The Cold Between Stars

by Adolphus Longestaffe (adolphus_longestaffe)



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Exophilia, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Other, Porn With Plot, Size Difference, Teratophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adolphus_longestaffe/pseuds/Adolphus%20Longestaffe
Summary: An Eliksni Captain belonging to the Vanguard-allied House of Light is assigned a Guardian partner for a mission to exterminate a Hive nest. The explicit sexual content tag is not a joke, so if you're not interested in big ol' alien dick, move along.
Relationships: Fallen | Eliksni Captain/Female Guardian
Comments: 24
Kudos: 83





	The Cold Between Stars

She is small. Very small. And thin. Perhaps she is ill, or suffering from parasites. But that cannot be the reason. He has heard that lightbearers are not affected by infectious pathogens. Still, she is small. He is not small. He is strong. A battle-tested Captain, well worth his ether, with a list of victories and commendations that are the envy of many. To be saddled with this smaller-than-dreg thing, not as a subordinate, but as an equal, is an insult to his native pride.

He checks his side holster to mask his irritation, reminding himself that he is pledged by honor to Mithrax, his Kell, and to the House of Light. Without these lightbearers as allies, there is no House and no Kell. He will swallow his pride, take the lightbearer to destroy this Hive nest and be done. Kell will be pleased, lightbearers will be pleased, and he will be left to go about his business.

“Karja,” he hears a voice say.

He looks down to see her pale-violet face and glowing, cat-green eyes smiling up at him, holding out a hand. His helmet tilts curiously to one side. He knows neither this word nor this gesture. Does she want something? He bares his fangs behind his mask, forcing his jaw into the uncomfortable position required for pronouncing Guardian-speech.

“What is…kar-yah?” he inquires, aware that it almost certainly sounds like a snarled demand to one of her kind.

She keeps smiling and doesn’t appear offended. “Karja’s my name. We haven’t been properly introduced.”

She is still holding out her hand. He looks down at it again, and seems to remember that touching of hands is a form of greeting among these creatures. He extends one of his and clasps hers gingerly.

“Ryksis.”

Lightbearer or no, she is definitely suffering from some kind of illness. Her hand is so hot, he can feel its warmth radiating through her hide glove. Maybe she will die of fever while they are on this mission.

“Ryksis,” she repeats, with not entirely inept pronunciation. “Cool name. I’m glad you speak Earth-English. I only understand a little Eliksni. Hey, maybe you can teach me some.”

Her voice is husky and low-toned, not a nasal whine like most human and Awoken females, but she talks far too quickly. He is not fully fluent in her language and it takes him a moment to catch up. Once he does he is irritated again. He cannot be expected to tutor this sickly, fever-ridden creature in Eliksni, in addition to keeping it from being devoured by Hive, or falling into a small hole and being lost. He doesn’t know how to politely indicate that he would not be a good teacher, so he says nothing and turns to continue loading the cargo for the mission.

“Need a hand?” Karja the miniature lightbearer asks.

He is still looking at his four hands, attempting to work out what she could possibly mean, when she comes over and takes hold of one of the backup fuel cells, as if she means to—he freezes in place, blinking all four eyes. Without so much as a grunt or grimace of strain, she hoists the huge cylinder onto her tiny shoulder. He stares after her in frank astonishment, as she carries it up the ramp into the cargo hold.

He had heard that lightbearers were uncommonly strong, but he had assumed that meant when judged comparatively with other humans. These hyper-concentrated fuel cells each weigh five-hundred kilos at least. He is not quite done being bewildered, when she trots back down the ramp and takes another. He mutters an oath under his breath as he picks up the remaining two, one in each hand, and follows her into the ship.

Once the fuel cells are stowed and secured in the hold, he climbs up the ladder into the main cabin, where he stops short, bristling with indignation. Karja the minute and infuriating lightbearer is standing there talking to his servitor. Cooing at it, as if it is an infant. His own servitor. In his own home.

“Hey, Ryksis,” she says, seeing him come in. “This is your servitor, right?”

He growls in the affirmative.

“I’ve never seen a little one like this. It’s adorable.”

As she says this, she reaches out her humanoid paw and actually pats the thing, at which the servitor gives a gratified warble and manages to look smug. Ryksis clenches his razorblade fangs under his helmet and slides back down the ladder, hoping that fever takes her soon. Of course, her own tiny servitor-thing will just bring her back, but the image of her wasting away as she succumbs to the illness soothes him somewhat.

When all of their gear is loaded, he goes to register the ship’s manifest with the Ketch dock master. He does not have to go in person, since the information can be transmitted electronically, but he is in a contrary mood and wishes to be inconvenienced to justify his irritability. When he returns, Karja is in the cockpit. She has seated herself in the captain’s chair as if it is her own, and is perusing the ship’s database. She moves into the copilot’s chair as soon as he stalks in, though, so he can’t be annoyed about that part.

“This is your personal ship?” she asks, as he straps himself in. “Not one belonging to the fleet?”

“Yes. My ship.”

“It’s registered under the name Anakse. Previous Captain?”

“My mate,” he replies curtly. “Dead. My ship now.”

“I’m sorry,” Karja says, looking away. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Misunderstanding her expression, he straightens his back and lifts his head proudly. “She died well. I am not ashamed.”

In truth, the loss of his mate was a blow that hobbled him, leaving him docked in spirit, if not in body. Of their nine offspring, two had survived to adulthood. One son, Dreksis, who was killed with Anakse, serving under her command. One daughter, Avriks, who went into the service of Eramis the Shipstealer, Kell of House Darkness. She is as lost as the dead. There are no others. Ryksis Koluun, he calls himself privately. Ryksis belonging to the cold-between-stars, would be the rough translation in Guardian-speech. But Eliksni do not even demonstrate grief in the presence of their own, let alone outsiders, and so he becomes stony and silent.

The lightbearer leaves him to his meditations and presses him for no further information, choosing instead to converse quietly with her tiny servitor thing. These small spawn of the Great Machine are entirely foreign to him. He knows they connect lightbearer to Light somehow, but nothing else. He didn’t even know they could talk.

“You haven’t met my Ghost,” Karja says, seeing him eyeing the thing. “Ryksis, this is Roxanne. Roxanne, Ryksis.”

“Raak-san,” he repeats, pleasantly surprised at the agreeable sound of the name.

“That’s me,” the floating ball says brightly, scanning him with its white eye-beam. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Ryksis. Or…Captain? I don’t know what’s appropriate.”

“Ryksis,” he grunts, turning his attention back to the controls.

Appearing to take the hint, they leave him in peace for another hour or so, then the lightbearer gets out of her chair and stretches her absurdly undersized body. Her hands don’t even touch the ceiling of the cockpit.

“How long you think, till we get there?” she asks.

“Hour, maybe. Cruiser…not as quick as jumpship.”

“No, but jumpships don’t have anywhere near the range or carrying capacity. Not to mention they’ve got almost no shielding. I bet this thing could take a few solid hits and be none the worse for wear, huh?”

Now she is leaning on his chair with one elbow, massaging the small of her back with the other hand and looking over his shoulder at the nav display. Suddenly, her scent washes over him. Something aromatic, like herbs or flowers, mingled with the warm, coppery tang of the red blood in her veins. His salivary glands activate and he has to grip the seat of his chair with his second set of hands, wrestling down a possessive, predatory urge to take hold of her and sink his teeth into her flesh.

She notices his abrupt change in posture and frowns. “You ok?”

“Eia,” he rasps. “Pain. Old wound.”

“Can I get you some…medicine, or something?”

He shakes his head. “Nama. Will be better.”

“Let me know if you change your mind,” she says through a yawn. “I’m gonna grab something to drink. The air is so fucking dry in space, you ever notice that?”

With that, she strolls out the cockpit door into the cabin. He waits till she is gone, then taps the control on his gauntlet to increase his ether dose. The hollow-toothed ache fades as he breathes deeply of the life-sustaining vapor, and after a few minutes, he returns the concentration to its normal level. Eliksni do not normally eat these humanoid creatures, and his inexplicable reaction to her—as if he is starving and she is a warm-blooded prey animal—troubles him. It is also a potential problem he had not counted on.

His ether ration has been more than adequate since he was made Captain many decades ago, but if he has to take this much during the entire operation, just to stop himself attacking his companion, it will place unacceptable strain on his small servitor. There will also be questions, as his helmet’s com-nav system also monitors his ether usage. A few temporary increases will raise no flags, since it is often required in strenuous combat or when injured, but a significant overall increase will be looked into.

The lightbearer returns drinking something from a silver packet and drops into her chair, stretching out her booted feet to rest them on the console in front of her. He thinks it a strangely petulant gesture, but makes no remark. When she has swallowed all the liquid inside, she turns the packet into a tube and rolls it back and forth between her palms.

He finds her apparent compulsion to be constantly in motion unnerving, so he becomes even more sullen and withdrawn. As a result, the final hour or so of their voyage passes in rather strained monosyllables and mutual discomfort. When, at long last, they draw up to the anchorage on the Tangled Shore, he is relieved to be able to concentrate on setting the ship down and managing the landing procedures.

Once they are successfully docked, he follows the lightbearer into the hold to gear up. The plan is to kill the brood queen, burn the nest, and exfiltrate before any local Fallen patrols arrive and turn the breach and clear into an all-out battle. A simple enough extermination, but the place where it is most likely go sideways is burning the nest. For this, they have been given crates of incendiary charges, which operate by remote detonation.

These need to be placed as deep in the nest as possible, to ensure maximum fire coverage. If any eggs survive, they will have to come back and do it all over again. However, the transmitter range is limited, and if they overdo the explosives, the surrounding area could collapse, crushing them beneath thousands of tons of rock and soil. The explosives will be a moot point, though, if they fail to clear the nest of the Hive guarding it.

Ryksis has seen a hint of the diminutive lightbearer’s strength, but he is dubious regarding her acumen in combat. Her body is soft and smooth, with no claws or fangs, or even chitin for defense. Her armor is made of polymers and cured animal hides, which offer some protection from slashing attacks but very little against projectiles or the crushing strength of an ogre.

Her weapons are…impressive. A black katana with a thin, flexible blade, an assault rifle that uses Void-tainted, armor-piercing bullets, a pair of heavy, silver hand cannons, and a beautiful machine gun painted a glossy reef-purple. In addition to these, wickedly curved knives seem to be tucked into every possible inch of her black, skin-tight armor. He wonders how many knives she actually has on her person, and if it would be impolite to ask.

She is kneeling beside the explosives crates attaching the transmat beacons, and when she stands up, he catches himself admiring the lean curve of her waist and the rounded protrusion of her hindquarters. She is extremely dissimilar in shape to the females of his own kind, but he supposes it is not so strange that she should be more similar to the males of her own kind, who are also small and soft.

It is abnormal and highly improper to even think about the shape of her body, however, and he is irritated with himself. Pushing these unwelcome thoughts from his mind, he turns away, taking up his shock blades to slide them into their sheaths. He will also carry a shrapnel rifle and a heavy scorch-cannon, capable of devastating wide-area damage, and particularly effective against swarming thralls.

“Ok, Ryksis, here’s the plan,” Karja says, as he turns to face her. “I’ll take care of the heavies. Watch my back, clear the swarms if I get overwhelmed, and don’t be a hero. A Hive extermination is not worth getting yourself killed.”

The towering, war-hardened Eliksni Captain is confused, then offended, by this small creature’s sudden assertion of authority. He bridles, giving a growl of protest.

“What’s the problem?” Karja asks.

“We are partners,” he rumbles, gesturing to her and then to himself with a long claw. “Equal. You are not commander.”

“You really want to do this with me, or can we skip the pissing contest and get the job done?” she demands, putting her stupidly small hands on her impossibly narrow hips.

He snarls again, but she stands her ground, her green eyes flashing fire.

“Ok then, allow me to explain to you how this works,” she says, actually pointing a finger at him. “We may be partners, but we are not equal. I’m stronger than you, faster than you, and if I go down, Roxy will have me up again before the Hive know what hit them. You don’t fix so easily. I’m not letting you die down there, so follow my lead, and don’t fuck up and make me save your ass.”

He narrows all four eyes and glares into her smooth, violet face for a long moment. Finally, he backs down, making a resigned clicking sound in his throat.

“Good. Once we’ve cleared out as many as we can and dealt with the brood queen, Roxy will transmat the bombs. The basic idea is to set ‘em off and run like hell. Use your teleport thing if shit gets dicey and if I fall behind, do not wait for me. Just get out. Got it?”

“Eia. Kaat-it.”

She blinks, then laughs. “Ok, that’s really cute.”

He does not know this word, ‘kee-oot,’ but he senses its intent is diminutive and does not like it. He snorts crossly, which only makes her laugh more, so he crouches by the door and sulks while she pulls on her masked helmet and wraps herself in a long, black cloak. When she’s done, they test the comms link between them, pick up their weapons, and step off the ship onto the dusty, purple-tinted soil of the Tangled Shore.

The broodhold they are tasked with clearing out is deep beneath the wreckage of the massive dreadnaught Saturn, which has remained a source of Hive outbreaks on the Shore since it crashed there during the Taken War. They make their way across the open terrain, her using some stealth technology he does not understand, and him using his Eliksni-made cloaking field, to avoid being spotted by Hive lookouts or random parties of Scorn raiders.

Beneath the western end of the monumental ship’s remains, at the coordinates Karja has supplied, they find the narrow, cavelike entrance, covered in bone-white Hive stalactites and their general filth. They approach, each on one side of the doorway, prepared to cover with their weapons. Before they breach, he pauses and looks at his companion.

“Die well, Kar-yah,” he growls, dipping his helmeted head.

She seems to understand and mirrors the gesture. “Die well, Ryksis.”

Then they brandish their weapons and enter the nest side-by-side. They find nothing in the first chamber, and in the following few, they meet with little resistance, as expected. Hive tend to gather in the lower levels of their nests, and ogres and wizards are rarely found above the surface, unless there is some ritual underway. They clear several pockets of thrall and acolytes as they make the descent to the lower levels, but nothing more.

Karja is beginning to be concerned. Roxanne has scanned everywhere and found no energy signature large enough to be a broodhold, or even the nest of a newly established brood queen. They have just crossed a narrow bridge between some wide trenches filled with bones, and Karja is remarking to Ryksis that it’s possible her information was bad, when they come upon the answer to the riddle.

Before them, a black, fathomless pit yawns, opening like a hellmouth into the bowels of the earth. All around it hang Hive sigils and glowing runes, and there is a soulfire trap chained across the opening, which Karja dispels with a few shots from her Void-tainted assault rifle.

“Looks like this is the place,” she says peering down into the darkness. “How deep you think it goes?”

Ryksis does not answer, as he has no way to judge the depth of this cavity. He does note that there are outcroppings along both sides, going down as far as he can see. They are deep and far apart, but they could be used as landings to drop down in short increments. The question is, how they would get back out. He is certain he could scale this wall and escape, but he has his doubts about the lightbearer. As he is thinking this, the absurdly undersized female leaps into the pit before his eyes and lands on an outcropping more than thirty meters down.

“Come on, Ryksis,” she encourages him, over the comms. “It’s not as far as it looks.”

He snarls an oath under his breath, steels himself, and leaps in after her.

This method of descent turns out to be quite a bit easier than it had appeared from above, and it is not nearly as dark at the bottom of the pit as it had seemed. Many of the pulsing, membranous growths in the walls emit their own light, and deeper down, the Hive’s sickly-green soulfire lamps hang about the tunnels and passages, providing convenient illumination for the intruders.

Roxanne is detecting very strong energy signatures now, and directs them through the maze of Hive rot toward the brood queen’s nest. They come to an arch-shaped opening in the wall and peer down into the cavernous, bone strewn and stalactite-covered chamber. It is immediately apparent why the Hive presence in the rest of the nest has been so intermittent.

The floor is literally crawling with legions of screaming thralls, among which many are glowing-green suicide exploders. Dispersed throughout the throng are splinter knights with flaming swords and acolytes with projectile boomers. Around the semi-circular perimeter of the room, spaced equally apart, are four massive Hive ogres. They appear to be guarding large, purple crystals which float above each of their heads. All are facing the immense soulfire well in the center of the chamber, from which the wails of the brood queen emanate.

“It looks like some kind of ritual,” Roxanne says. “But I can’t tell what for.”

“Whatever it is, we’re gonna put a stop to it,” Karja answers, drawing her two hand-cannons.

“Karja, this is far too dangerous,” Roxanne protests. “The brood queen alone is extremely powerful and right now, she’s surrounded by thousands of her minions.”

“We’ve been through worse, we just need a strategy. Uh…let me think.”

“Warding crystals,” Ryksis says, with an edge of impatience. “Make shield for weak-sick Sloaatkir. Must be destroyed.”

“Is that what they’re all doing here in the brood chamber? The queen is sick?”

“May be in egg-laying. Will consume most of these. Many new hatch soon.”

“See, this is why no one likes the Hive,” Karja says. “They’re fucking gross. So, if we destroy the warding crystals, the brood queen will be weakened?”

“Weak, yes. But rage-burning. Warbeast in corner.”

“She can rage all she wants, we’re still gonna kill her. Roxy, can you transmat all the incendiary charges into that hole?”

“I can, but is that wise? You’ll have to detonate them before we leave the sublevel.”

“Before I leave the sublevel. Ok, new plan. I’m gonna take out the ogres. Ryksis, you stay up here and shoot down the crystals, and cover me so I don’t get swarmed. That should draw out the queen bee. Once she’s exposed, we’ll focus fire till she’s down, then you get the fuck out of here. After that, it’s just dropping the payload and the Hive going kaboom.”

Ryksis gives a clicking growl of assent and readies his scorch-cannon. He is doubtful regarding this small female’s ability to handle all the ogres alone, but he is curious to see how she fights. If she gets in trouble, he can always jump down and help.

She stows her hand-cannons again, tosses him a jaunty salute, then takes a tumbling leap off the ledge and vanishes into thin air. He watches the movements of the swarm to attempt to assess her position, but there is no reaction so far. He assumes she’ll go for the nearest ogre first, and he is correct. About ten seconds have passed when she appears behind it, black-bladed katana in hand.

Without a beat of hesitation, she lunges in and slashes its enormous legs out from under it. The thing gives a tremendous, roaring bellow that dies in its throat as it topples forward like a fallen tree, Karja’s katana buried deep in its vital organs. The throng erupts into screaming chaos, acolytes hurling Void bolts and a wave of thralls rushing to the attack, but she pulls out her sword and dodges out of existence before a single one reaches her position.

Ryksis waits a few more seconds to be sure she’s clear of the area, then unleashes a storm of hellfire from the scorch cannon, smashing the crystal, disintegrating thralls, knights, and acolytes alike, and burning the ogre’s body to black particles. Almost simultaneously, the next ogre goes down, then the next, each followed by the same scorch-cannon blasts and mass confusion for the Hive.

The acolytes and Knights have assessed his position now, and are lobbing arc-bolts at him, which prevents him using his arc-energy based shield. This is only a minor annoyance, since the knights can’t get up here and the acolytes are terrible shots. He simply teleport-dodges between blasts from the cannon, and their efforts are baffled.

The fourth ogre falls to the lightbearer’s sword, and the brood queen bursts forth from the well, shrieking and howling, hurling fire-blasts haphazardly from her long, clawed hands. She destroys many of her own in her unbridled rage, but this matters little to the insectile Hive. Scream and rain fire as she may, however, she cannot get a clear shot at the lightbearer, who dodges her attacks with mocking ease.

If Ryksis could smile, he would. It seems he has grossly underestimated his partner. Not only is she competent, but the little huntress is an absolutely savage combatant. She looks almost joyous performing her bloodthirsty dance, weaving through swarms of thralls, smashing skulls, impaling torsos and slicing off limbs as she goes.

“Focus fire!” she shouts through the comms, as she takes the heads off two acolytes at once.

Ryksis turns his scorch-cannon on the brood-queen and sends a barrage of molten death her way. At the same time, the huntress leaps ten meters straight into the air and, summoning a huge bow made of the black light of the outer Void, shoots what appears to be a miniature black hole directly into the beset brood-queen’s thorax. Black tendrils whip out all around her, tethering her to her swarming host, which arrests her movement as the Void rapidly drains her of life and power.

Weakened, dying, enraged and desperate, she calls on her lingering connection to the Deep and casts a devastating, last-ditch spell. Raising her sinuous arms, she creates a vortex, drawing in a massive overload of power from her surviving brood. They collapse lifeless to the cave floor, and she unleashes all their energy at once. The massive shockwave knocks the huntress to the ground, and the wall of fire blasts her body to smoldering embers.

Ryksis just has time to see this before the blast hits him as well. He is thrown back against the wall and his helmet is shattered. His body is not nearly so vulnerable to heat and impact however, and he is damaged, but not badly. He staggers to his feet and tosses away his smashed helmet, then rushes to the side of the ledge to look down on the scene below.

The Hive lie dead in fragments all about the floor. The brood-queen is destroyed and her soulfire well is dark and cold. Beside the dead well, close to where he saw the lightbearer fall, he spies her little servitor thing. Its shell has opened up to expose its core, and it is emitting a beam of pure, bright-white light. A few seconds later, the lightbearer materializes before her, whole and apparently uninjured. She turns and takes a dashing leap, clearing the ten meters to the ledge and landing on her feet beside Ryksis.

“That necromantic gaze is a real killer,” she chirps, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “You gonna be ok without your helmet?”

Ryksis nods. He can survive for many days without ether, but his usefulness in combat will be diminished, as his strength and his body’s ability to repair injury will be dampened. It doesn’t appear they will have much more to do in the vein, however, so he is not overly concerned. He has plenty of replacement helmets back on the ship, and his servitor to resupply what he’s lost.

“Excellent,” Karja says. “Roxy is going to transmat the charges now, so get out of here as quickly as you can. Comms are a no-go, so I’ll wait ten minutes to let you get clear of the sublevels. Then I’ll set ‘em off and hopefully get out of here before it all collapses.”

Ryksis narrows his four eyes. “Hope-fully?”

“Yeah, hopefully. That was the plan, remember?”

He gives a low growl and remains where he is.

Karja tilts her helmeted head to one side. “Aww, you’re worried about me! I’m gonna be fine you big old softie. We’ve still gotta finish the job, so get moving.”

Ryksis hesitates for another beat, then slings his scorch-cannon onto his back and strides out the archway into the black tunnel. Unhampered by the ether gas, his native sense of smell is infinitely stronger, and it takes him less than five minutes to follow Karja’s scent back to the pit from which they had descended to the sublevels. With his four, clawed hands and the hooked talons on his feet, he makes quick work of the climb, then pauses, looking down into the pit.

She’d told him to get clear of the sublevels, but he is under no obligation to depart the nest entirely. Leaving her alone to set off the incendiary charges already feels dishonorable, and he has no intention of saving himself like a coward if there is a chance she will be injured or trapped in the rubble. Thus decided, he crouches beside the pit and waits.

Exactly four minutes later, there is a thundering boom that shakes the floor and rattles the brittle stalactites that cover the walls and ceiling, shaking them loose and causing a hail of bony fragments to pelt the cave floor. He leaps to his feet and peers down into the pit. There is an odd sound like rushing wind coming from below, and some kind of illumination growing quickly in intensity.

With terrifying speed, a gout of fire roars up and bursts from the hellmouth like the breath of a dragon, narrowly missing Ryksis, who teleports backward just in time. Just ahead of the torrent of flame, mere centimeters from its ravenous tongues, the huntress comes flying up from the pit, as if shot from a cannon. She arcs her leap downward and lands with a predator’s grace, rolling and using the inertia to push herself to her feet.

“The whole place is coming down, let’s go!” she shouts to Ryksis, who is already running after her.

The ground pitches and tilts beneath their feet as they dash madly for the entrance, stalactites like the heads of giant’s spears and massive chunks of rock raining down around them. Just as they reach the literal light at the end of the tunnel, their path is blocked by a bellowing ogre and two splinter knights, who seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

Reflexively, Ryksis pushes Karja out of the way of the ogre’s death blast, absorbing the majority of the hit with his arc-shield. She wheels about and falls upon the thing in a whirlwind of black blades, but the two knights have turned on Ryksis. His weakened shield disintegrates as one splinter sword comes down heavily on his chest, and the force of the blow shakes him down to his bones.

His shock blades are already buried in the knight’s torso, piercing its exoskeleton like tissue paper and sending it back to the Deep. The other splinter sword comes swinging through the whirling particles and strikes him hard in the midsection, knocking him to the ground. He kicks out and slashes the knight’s legs with his claws, severing its horned head as it crumples on top of him.

“Ryksis, god damn it!” Karja shouts, rushing to his side. “I told you not to be a fucking hero!”

Seeing that the blue fire in his eyes is dim, she puts her hands on his face, then leans over and ensures that he is breathing. She tries patting his cheeks and calling his name again, but he doesn’t respond or even blink. Roxanne emerges and scans his body with her white eye-beam.

“He’s bleeding internally,” she says. “I can’t do anything for him. Without a lot of ether very soon, he’ll die.”

“We have to get him to his servitor on the ship,” Karja replies. “You can’t transmat him, either, though so…it looks like I’ll have to carry him.”

“Karja, sweetheart, you’re not thinking clearly,” Roxanne says, stopping her as she stoops to lift her insensate companion. “I’ll transmat your Sparrow. Load him onto it and walk with him.”

“This is why I love you, Rox. You’re the functioning half of my brain. Let’s do it.”

The Sparrow materializes and the diminutive huntress hoists her gigantic, unconscious companion onto it, laying his head between the handlebars. He’s so heavy it rides about eight inches lower than normal and his arms nearly drag on the ground, but it’s good enough. She engages the pulse engine to get the thing up to idling speed, then holds him steady as she runs alongside it toward the cloaked cruiser.

Once they are in range, Roxanne communicates with the ship and gets the cargo door open, and her Guardian pushes the makeshift gurney right up the ramp. As the door retracts, she lowers him to the floor as gently as possible, then rolls him onto his back, holding his head in her lap.

“Come on, Ryksis, don’t give up,” she says, stroking the shock of coarse, black hair that runs down the center of his head like a mohawk. “I’m not letting you die, you hear me?”

The touch and the heat of her hands startles him back to hazy consciousness. Two of his four eyes blink open and he sees her upside-down face leaning over him. He wonders why she is expelling fluid from her eyes, and if they’ve been burned by Hive miasma. He tries to ask, but all that comes out is a gurgling snarl.

“Hey, there you are,” she laughs, but in a strangely shaky voice. “If you’re alive enough to whine about it, you’re alive enough to stay that way. So, stay alive. Got it?”

His vision is fading quickly. He wants so badly to reach up and touch her soft, stupid face before he dies, but he can’t make any of his arms move. He feels his servitor throw its restorative energy around him, just as the blackness takes him.

Several hours later, he is still unconscious, and Karja is still watching over him. His servitor has done all it can, and now it’s up to time and chance, and his will to survive. He knows none of this. He is far away, wandering in the twilight between worlds.

He looks to the west and thinks of Anakse and their son. The abyss calls to him. In its embrace is rest, peace, and blessed darkness. To the east is only pain and solitary toil, and many more years fighting the hopeless war. But dimly, in some part of his consciousness, he feels the warm hands of the huntress on his face. With heavy, labored steps, he turns back to the east, to face the blinding light.

When he wakes again, his head is clearer, and the pain is almost gone from his body. The lightbearer is still sitting with him on the cargo bay floor, just as she was, holding his head in her lap and stroking his hair with her soft fingertips. He wants to tell her something about this kind of touch, but his mouth is dry and his tongue is leaden, and he can only manage two syllables.

“Kar…yah,” he rasps.

“Ryksis, thank the sky,” she breathes, sounding as if they are egg-kin who have met again after long separation. “You’ve been out for twenty hours and I have to piss so bad I think I might need a res afterward. Can you move at all?”

He nods and she helps him, supporting his back as he pushes himself up to a sitting position. As soon as she is certain he won’t topple over again, she hops up and hurries away (to the lavatory, he hopes). He looks dazedly around the cargo bay, beginning to recall the events of the past two days. The Hive nest, the brood queen, the smashed helmet, the splinter swords to his chest and stomach, then Karja the tiny lightbearer, dragging him back here and saving his life.

“Oh, careful!” Raak-san exclaims, as he staggers to his feet. “Karja’s gonna be pretty mad if you hurt yourself.”

“Need food…water,” he hisses, more because his throat and mouth are parched, than from annoyance.

She darts over to him and hovers protectively. “You have a bed, right? Let me take you to lie down and I’ll have Karja bring you what you need, ok?”

“Oh-keh.” He knows this term, having observed lightbearers using it to express consent or agreement, and is pleased to have a reason to try it.

Raak-san floats beside him as he makes his slow way to his sleeping chamber, where he falls into his bed. He is ravenous, thirsty, and exhausted to the bone, but he’s no longer in pain. He sees the tiny servitor thing whir out of the room, presumably to fetch her Guardian, before he sinks into a deep, natural sleep.

Karja returns some time later, shaking him awake and making him remove his armor, which he does slowly and clumsily, letting it lie where it falls on the floor. She has brought water and ration packets. He swallows as much water as he can and eats enough to satisfy her that he is no longer malnourished, then she hands him a square, brown, shiny thing that smells of fruit and earth. She calls it chocolate and says it always makes her feel better, so he assumes it must be a medicinal compound of some kind. It certainly tastes that way, and she laughs at his grimace of displeasure as he swallows it.

Now that he’s eaten, he feels his fatigue returning and lies back on the firm pad that serves as his mattress. Karja sits down on his bed beside him without being invited, but he is too weary to protest. His heavy eyelids droop closed, then flutter back open as she begins to stroke the coarse hair on his head again. It feels so good and her hands are so warm, but it would not be honorable to allow her to continue.

“This touch,” he says reluctantly, “it is only used in courtship, between mates.”

“Oh,” she replies. Her green eyes come down to meet his. “Do you…want me to stop?”

He stops breathing. His four glowing, blue eyes stare back at her in blank incomprehension. She cannot be asking what it sounds like she is asking. It’s simply not possible. She can’t want to…take him for a mate. Can she?

His mouth has gone dry again, but he is able to get out the one word that matters. “No.”

Her soft, pale-lilac lips curl into a smile. “Good.”

She draws away, though, and stands up, stretching her arms above her head. He watches, entranced, as she removes her cloak and chest armor, then her belt and holsters. Then piece by piece, she peels off her tight, black clothing. She is so physically different from his kind that he almost finds it disorienting. Still, he can’t help but admire the aesthetic beauty of her small, round breasts, and the taut smoothness of her violet-toned body.

His heart pounds like a war-drum as she kneels on the bed beside him, then throws her leg over to straddle his waist. She is warm. Almost hot against his cool, ether-blooded body. Her skin is impossibly soft, like winter rabbit hides but even silkier, somehow. She leans over and rests her elbows on his chest, with her chin on one hand, looking into his face.

He has no idea what to do next. He can feel her naked breasts pressed against the skin between his chitin plates, and the heat emanating from the slit between her legs. Despite her small size and lack of natural armor, he feels suddenly helpless in the hands of this powerful female. The sensation is thrilling to him, and he is reminded somehow of Anakse.

He reaches up and strokes Karja’s short, glossy black hair, letting his other pair of hands settle on her tiny waist. She smiles and closes her eyes, passively inviting further exploration. Taking care not to rake her with his claws, he slides his palms down the curve of her back onto her round hindquarters, which he prods and squeezes curiously. This makes her laugh and he feels it reverberate in his ribcage.

Pulling herself up to sit higher on his chest, she takes his face in her hot hands and presses her lips against his muzzle. Her mouth is open and he feels her hot breath on his skin. He lets his jaw open slightly, exposing more of his many, very sharp fangs. Her breath comes faster and her eyes fall closed again. Cautiously, he slides his long tongue across the barrier of her parted lips to taste her mouth. Their tongues find one another, caressing gently at first, then more forcefully. Her body shudders all over and she gives a soft moan, that travels straight down his spine into his sex organs.

All at once, that possessive, predatory urge comes rushing back, and this time, he has no reason to attempt to sublimate it. Taking her arms in two hands and her legs in the other two, he flips her onto her back and pins her to the sleeping mat, thighs spread wide and arms above her head. She is his now, and he wants to taste and scent her entire body before he takes her.

He buries his face in her neck and breathes deeply, then does the same all over her upper body, snuffing her scent and laving his long tongue over her shimmering, violet skin. He lets go of her arms to cup her breasts in his hands and flick his tongue over her nipples. They pucker and stand rigidly out from the springy tissue. This seems like an encouraging sign, so he curls his tongue and lashes it against them, then rakes them gently with his fangs, squeezing her breasts as he does so.

She moans softly and bucks up with her hips, trying to grind against his body, but his other hands have firm hold of her thighs. Circling her erect nipples with his thumbs, he licks a long, slow line down her stomach and abdomen. He lingers between her legs and pushes his muzzle into the crease of her inner thigh. The pheromone-saturated scent of her intense sexual arousal flows into his nostrils, sending his mating instinct into overdrive.

He feels his protective scales shift and open up as blood flows into his genitals, engorging the tissue and pushing them out of their retracted state in his body. His testes feel tight and heavy. His shaft grows long and rigid, with strongly pronounced dorsal ridges, and a thick bulb swelling out midway to the base. The tapered head is already leaking clear fluid.

He pushes her thighs up, lifting her ass off the mattress and spreading her further open, and plunges his rough tongue into her swollen cleft. She strains upward with her hips, making soft, pleading sounds as he laps the highly sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of her labia, relishing her tart, acidic taste. Her skin is growing hotter and a flush is spreading over her stomach and chest.

Grabbing hold of his shock of thick hair, she gives a cry that he briefly mistakes for pain or distress, before it occurs to him that this is her species’ pleasure sound. She writhes beneath him, chest heaving and thighs shaking as she comes on his tongue. He draws back and watches her opening convulsing, dripping clear fluid as it spasms and contracts. Then he slots his heavy shaft between her vulva and slides it up and down in the warm, wet slick.

“Fuck me,” she hums, biting her pouting bottom lip with her top teeth. “I want you now. Fuck me.”

He is literally aching to be inside her, but finds himself hesitant to penetrate her small, delicate body with what seems comparatively like a ludicrously oversized male organ. He looks up at her face, then guiding it with one of his hands, he presses the head against her tight, slippery entrance. Anxious not to cause her any pain, he sinks in as slowly as he can, until the first set of ridges pushes through the resistance.

She is so hot inside it almost burns. The sensation of her snug hole squeezing on him is inebriating, and he has to use all his willpower to keep going slowly, giving her humanoid anatomy time to acclimate to his Eliksni girth. When he is buried in her down to the rounded bulge in the middle of his shaft, she is flushed and panting, and beads of perspiration are rolling down her forehead. He rocks his pelvis gently, sliding in and out, but thinks this is as far as he’ll get. She already feels impossibly stretched around him, and there is no way forcing it will be agreeable to her.

“What—why are you stopping,” she says breathlessly. “Please, don’t stop.”

He hesitates still. “You are small. Do not want to hurt you.”

She takes hold of his hips with her little hands, trying to pull him closer. “You won’t hurt me, I promise. I can take all of it. Give it to me.”

Keeping his eyes on her face to gauge her reaction, he pushes harder and harder. Suddenly, it pops through and he plunges all the way into her in one deep, brutal thrust. She lets loose an explosion of profanity in several languages, and digs her fingernails into the skin between his chitin plates. Somewhere in the nonsense pouring from her mouth, he discerns clear demands to keep fucking her, which is fortunate, because he couldn’t stop himself now if he tried.

Fully under the control of the deep, primal mating instinct, he holds her down with all four hands and pounds ruthlessly into her wet, sucking heat, slamming his hips against her thighs with each thrust. His shaft swells and grows more rigid as he nears his climax. He is as hard as steel now and his testicles ache like they’re going to burst.

Almost against his will, he lunges forward and sinks his razor-sharp fangs into the meat of her shoulder. She screams. Like a prey animal caught in the hunter's maw, only it sounds more like ecstasy than pain. Maybe both. Her blood is running into his mouth and trickling down her shoulder, and he is thrusting wildly into her, clinging to her burning-hot body for dear life.

“Again!” she gasps. “Bite me again!”

He unlocks his jaw and bites deep into her other shoulder. As he does, he feels her insides clamp down and she gives a strangled cry, her tight hole squeezing and sucking on him as she comes. The intensity of her orgasm pulls him over the edge with her. The aching knot of tension snaps and he comes so hard he sees stars in all four eyes. The milky, viscous fluid he is pumping into her overflows, spilling out around his shaft and splashing onto his bed.

He holds himself deep inside, letting her ride out her spasms, then he pulls out carefully and rolls onto his back beside her, so as not to crush her small, humanoid body beneath a half-ton of Eliksni chitin, bone, and muscle. For a while, he lies there stupefied, attempting to catch his breath and get his head to stop spinning.

Eventually, it occurs to him to check on the Awoken female he just fucked like he was trying to kill them both, and he turns his head to look at her. She is gazing dreamily at the ceiling, twirling her fingers in her short, black hair. She looks back at him and smiles, and it nearly takes his breath away. He can’t believe he didn’t see how beautiful she was the moment they met.

On a wild impulse, he pulls her onto his chest and wraps all four arms around her, cradling her soft, warm body tightly against his hard, less-warm one. She submits to the embrace and relaxes on top of him, letting him press his muzzle into her hair and breathe her intoxicating scent. A minute or so passes, then a rumbling growl of contentment starts in his chest, that doesn’t stop, only changes pitch slightly when he breathes in.

Karja laughs her low, husky laugh and lifts her head. “Ryksis, you are purring. Like a huge cat.”

“Purring, yes,” he murmurs, without opening his eyes. “Good sound?”

“Very good sound,” she says, laughing again, and nestles her head into the soft spot between his chin and his chest’s chitin plates.

The flight back to the Ketch that serves as the center of operations for the House of Light is the one of the briefest Ryksis has ever made. It is not that he will miss the tiny, infuriatingly self-assertive lightbearer with her bizarre, humanoid behaviors and her warm hands, but their intimacy has made him aware that he still has the capacity to desire companionship. As such, it has also made him more keenly aware than ever of how alone he really is.

Since he lost Anakse, he had never once entertained the idea of taking another mate. He considered that part of his soul to have died with her, and had resigned himself to his solitary fate. His brief interaction with Karja, however, has torn open his layers of protective scar-tissue and left him raw and empty. But it does not matter. She will go, and he will remain. Ryksis belonging to the cold-between-stars, just as before. Nothing has really changed.

Of course, he says nothing of what is passing in his mind, and she neither asks for his thoughts regarding what occurred between them, nor offers her own. When they land, he has to go right away to his Kell and deliver a full report on their mission. Karja stays behind to pack up her gear, and when he returns to his ship, she is ready to depart. He’s not sure if she waited to say goodbye to him, but she certainly doesn’t appear to be the sentimental type.

“It was good working with you, Ryksis,” she says, holding out her hand.

He takes her hand and shakes it. “You as well, Kar-yah.”

“You could learn to follow instructions a little better,” Raak-san adds cheerfully, “but I’m glad you were there to watch my Guardian’s back.”

Karja smiles up at him. “I am, too. And who knows, maybe we’ll get to work to together again sometime.”

“Maybe,” he repeats.

She begins to walk away across the hangar, then stops and turns back. “Hey, Ryksis. Die well.”

He bows his head low, spreading his arms in token of respect. “Die well, Kar-yah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Eliksni translations based on some excellent research published on the Ishtar Collective website. (https://errata.ishtar-collective.net/the-fallen-language/)


End file.
